In designing all functions and all data structures, a computer programmer tries always to use variables rather than constants. On the level of the human-computer interface, this principle means that the user is given many options to modify the performance of a program or a media object, be it a computer game, Web site, Web browser, or the operating system itself. The user can change the profile of a game character, modify how folders appear on the desktop, how files are displayed, what icons are used, and so forth. If we apply this principle to culture at large, it would mean that every choice responsible for giving a cultural object a unique identity can potentially always remain open.
Lev Manovich
The method of our time is to use not a single but multiple models for exploration—the technique of the suspended judgment is the discovery of the twentieth century as the technique of invention was the discovery of the nineteenth.
Back in January I had a good look at the iPhone and Jefferson Han’s work on multi-touch interfaces (here and here). And for those of you looking to gain some kind of contextualization on this fascinating and highly topical area of interface design I’ve recently come across Bill Buxton’s historical overview.
I casually mention these only by way of introduction to Microsoft’s (ahem) “new paradigm in computing”, the Surface computer. Here’s one of Microsoft’s own promotional videos:
For something a little more illuminating, and that briefly includes schematics showing the innards of the Surface:
And for the inner geek, here’s a full 18-minute test-drive of the thing:
Yes, it’s pretty impressive (although the thought of that bog-standard PC running Windows Vista hiding inside is a bit off-putting). Some thoughts:
It’s not clear how the security issues will work. I mean, have you ever transferred data from one device to another without generating security prompts? As these will be public devices it seems inconceivable that security will not be a huge issue, and yet not once do we see anyone even inputting a PIN number in any of the videos. As if!
Will all manufactured objects become ‘tagged’ in the near future to allow interfacing with surface computers?
If so, will there develop a universal tagging language that will be understood by all “surface-compatible” products?
Can we predict a new job description: Surface Designer?
I do think there is a certain inevitability about this type of product.
The ability of the Surface to act as a ‘docking station’ for mobile devices calls to mind one of McLuhan’s Laws of Media: if you push a technology to an extreme it flips over into it’s opposite. In other words, as mobile devices have gotten smaller and yet more powerful, the tendency for miniaturization flips over into single large device that many of them can simultaneously attach to like a Mother Ship.
Doesn’t the Microsoft Surface remind you of those black glass-topped gaming tables you used to find in pubs? Space Invaders, anyone?
Of course there are those who quite rightly question Microsoft’s presumptuous and overblown claims for their product: British multi-touch interface designer Andrew Fentem has a reasonable and well-argued critique of both Microsoft and Jefferson Han here. Fentem’s own Spaceman Technologies website is well worth checking out by multi-touch aficionados.
Finally, irresistibly, if only to puncture the corporate pomposity of Microsoft:
A couple of weeks ago, in an idle moment, I picked up The Medium is the Massage again and read it from cover to cover. It took me about an hour. Since then, I’ve read it cover to cover twice more, and am constantly dipping into it. I love it.
The Medium is the Massage wasn’t actually “written” by McLuhan:
The book had in fact been composed by Jerome Agel, who had written a profile of McLuhan in 1965, and Quentin Fiore, a first-class book designer. The two selected or commissioned photographs to accompany excerpts they culled and reshaped from various writings and statements of McLuhan’s. [...] McLuhan contributed the punning title and approved the text and layouts. Agel and Fiore evidently did their work well: McLuhan changed only one word. Their mix of text and visuals was indeed a virtuoso feat. They used arresting photographs and artwork and performed interesting experiments with type, laying it upside down, on the slant, or in mirror image, switching its size from page to page, switching between regular and boldface, and so on.
Agel referred to the result as a “cubist” production. McLuhan recognized that it was an effective sales brochure for his ideas. (Marchand 1989, p.192)
Exactly forty years on, the book stands up well: it’s very digital media. The book is a riot of collages, visual puns, voice prints, excerpts from newspapers and magazines, cartoons, abstract patterns, extreme close-ups, black- and white-negative space, and runs the whole gamut of typographical experimentation. It’s the sort of thing that would be quite easy to do now, but was probably very difficult in 1967.
Set against and around this visual feast are expertly chosen and edited nuggets of McLuhan’s writing. The text bounces off the images, argues and agrees with them, works in concert and opposition. It resonates. It’s metaphoric.
The Medium is the Massage remains McLuhan’s bestselling book, and it’s easy to see why: the brevity, the condensation, the humour, the life offered by the interplay between text and image. It’s deep and entertaining. As an introduction to McLuhan it is second to none.
References
Marchand, P. (1989) Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger. New York: Tickner & Fields.
McLuhan, M. & Fiore, Q. (1967) The Medium is the Massage. San Francisco: Hardwired.
McLuhan’s Wake is the new DVD release of a 2002 film by Canadian documentary director Kevin McMahon. It doesn’t have a straightforward linear narrative, but has three main themes that cycle round each other: firstly, McLuhan’s use of Poe’s Descent Into The Maelstrom as a metaphor for our current situation in relation to the “vortex” of technological change; secondly, McLuhan’s Laws of Media; and thirdly, a biographical strand reconstructed mostly from stills and TV clips. Laurie Anderson provides the main narration, with added commentary from the usual suspects: Eric McLuhan, Corrine McLuhan, Neil Postman, Phillip Marchand, Frank Zingrone, et al.
I’ve watched it twice now and I’d have to say it’s not a great film. For me, there are two main problems with it: one, the visual images don’t always tie in with the ideas that they’re supposed to be expressing. A lot of the footage is quite generic and could be about almost anything given the context, although I suspect much of this may be down to financial limitations (it being an independent production). Two, the soundtrack is mixed quite badly. The interviews are really the backbone of the film and they’ve often chosen to fade them in and out, which means you lose the end of sentences. Frustrating! Also, the mix leaves something to be desired. The voices don’t always sit at the same level and the music is generally too loud.
Having said all that, it’s wonderful to have. There are loads of extras: a couple of hours of footage from the original interviews, hours and hours of audio (including two lengthy examples of McLuhan himself talking), and “hundreds of pages” of documents that include the Director’s notes, McLuhan biog, shooting script, and—joy of joys—a study guide. There’s a full set of subtitles, the navigation is well organized, and it’s Region 0 encoded. Not bad for a tenner!
So there we have it. It’s not really a critical evaluation of McLuhan’s work, but a serious and ambitious attempt to get McLuhan’s complex ideas over to a non-specialist audience. If you’ve never read any of his books and want to know why Wired magazine named a middle-aged conservative and Catholic the “patron saint of the Internet”, this is a good a place to start. It would also make an ideal introduction and resource for an undergraduate course teaching McLuhan.
What can I say? I’m a BIG fan of Marshall McLuhan. I first came across him sometime around 1992 and I’d just completed my Post-Graduate Diploma in Music Information Technology. Just as I was finishing my dissertation (on synthesizer interface design) my research somehow led me to Understanding Media and it completely blew me away. Since then I’ve read most of his major works, his published letters, a biography, and several other books about him and his work. I’m the very proud owner of a First Edition of The Mechanical Bride.
His writing remains unique, especially for an academic. Most obviously, he deliberately and self-consciously avoids the expositional logico-scientific structures of the academic paper, preferring instead a kind of mosaic - or what he would probably call a ‘field’ - of fragments, references, allusions, metaphors, puns, and killer one-liners. These spiral around the subject under discussion like a swarm of determined and very clever bees.
For example: chapter 2 in Understanding Media is entitled ‘Media Hot and Cold’. The second paragraph begins with some basic definitions and is quite easy to read and understand:
There is a basic principle that distinguishes a hot medium like radio from a cool one like the telephone, or a hot medium like the movie from a cool one like TV. A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in “high definition.” High definition is the state of being well filled with data. A photograph is, visually, “high definition.” A cartoon is “low definition,” simply because very little visual information is provided.
Straightforward enough, no? But then over the next 10 pages he develops this simple idea, taking in along the way hieroglyphic vs ideogrammic writing, ballet, Freud, steel axes and the Australian Aborigine, Newton, Blake, Frank Lloyd Wright, anxiety, boredom, jazz, Margaret Mead, W.H. Auden and Shakespeare, a rationale for the great period in Athenian culture, Calvin Coolidge, traffic calming, Glenn Gould and Stravinsky, dark glasses, James Joyce, Constance Rourke, and Dr. Johnson. Phew!
Like all intertextuality, understanding and evaluation is only possible if you know the sources, and his range of references is extremely broad. It can make for exhausting reading, but at the end of the day there is no-one like him. No matter whether you love him or loathe him, agree or disagree, his work is challenging and visionary and more relevant now than it was when he wrote it (Understanding Media came out in 1964). He reminds me a bit of Freud, in the sense that - although many of his ideas may have been misguided, off target, or just plain wrong - his work has completely changed the way we think about the world (and ourselves).
Here’s a little snippet of him in action. It’s short, but it really does give the true flavour of his dense, aphoristic style:
As you can probably tell from the giveaway title for this post, I plan to write more on McLuhan. I hope that over time these might mount up to something substantial. But to round off today’s introductory sermon, I thought I’d end with one of my favourite quotes of his - McLuhan’s definition of politics:
